TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! Coming off All Quiet on the Western Front, and Conclave, Edward Berger has earned a spot as one of the best directors working today. His latest, Ballad of a Small Player, is an interesting film, though it falls well short of the heights of his previous Oscar-nominated endeavors.
Ballad of a Small Player is the tale of Lord Doyle, a degenerate gambler, thief, and grifter with delusions of grandeur, brought to glorious life by Colin Farrell. Doyle stays at the finest hotels in Macau, orders champagne and caviar, and is fond of baccarat, the game of high rollers. When we meet him, it is clear that his luck has run out — the hotel has stopped offering him credit, and his extravagant hotel bill, to the tune of tens of thousands of US dollars, has come due.
Doyle finds another hotel and another high-stakes game of baccarat. He manages to borrow money from Dao Ming (Fala Chen), an attractive woman and a loan shark, who takes a liking to him. Inevitably, things don’t work out, and the two part ways on bad terms. His trouble doesn’t stop there — soon he’s spotted by Cynthia Blythe (Tilda Swinton), who has been hired to locate him by people he owes much more serious money to. She knows that he’s not really a Lord, nor is his name even Doyle, and he faked his own death to escape his mounting debts.
“When we meet him, it is clear that his luck has run out — the hotel has stopped offering him credit and his extravagant hotel bill, to the tune of tens of thousands of US dollars, has come due.”
One of Ming’s other clients jumps to his death after his own tally of losses becomes unpayable. This causes both Ming and Doyle to question their own actions, and the two reconnect. As Doyle is chased by Blythe, he gets into even more trouble, and get to see all manner of Macau’s luxury spaces, darker corners, and seedy characters. One of these is another degenerate gambler and pathological liar, Adrian Lippett, played by Alex Jennings (The Crown), who delights every time he’s on screen.
After having done incredible work in films like In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, and The Lobster, Colin Farrell is starting to get the recognition he deserves with a Golden Globe for his outstanding work in The Penguin, and an Oscar nomination for The Banshees of Inisherin. Ballad of a Small Player is one of his greatest roles, and in a career as lofty as his, that’s quite an accomplishment. He comes across as perfectly cocky and grandiose, yet we can see the fundamental insecurity driving his wild behavior. Eventually, his persona is eroded to the point that we see the vulnerable man underneath, one using ever more elaborate distractions to escape his own demons.
Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as a by-the-books, even uptight, private investigator, and Fala Chen shows up with a warm and sensitive heart under Dao Ming’s facade of a no-nonsense businesswoman. But these parts are relatively minor — Lord Doyle is squarely the focus — Colin Farrell is on the screen for virtually every frame of the film.
“Between the writing, cinematography, and the direction, Macau is brought to life in a way we’ve never seen on screen before.”
Where Ballad of a Small Player stumbles is in the resolution of the plot. It requires either an astoundingly unlikely sequence of events, belief in the supernatural (a ghost is alluded to), or somehow dismissing the entire second half of the film as a fever dream or afterlife experience. The movie sort of toys with all of these interpretations, but never solidly chooses one, nor are any particularly satisfying. The screenplay was adapted by Rowan Joffé from the novel by Lawrence Osborne, and it feels like the writers wrote themselves into a dead end in bringing Doyle to his lowest, solvable only with deus ex machina levels of desperation.
Still, there are enough good things in Ballad of a Small Player to make it worth your time. The characters are superb, and they are performed by actors at the peak of their game. The cinematography, by James Friend, who was also Director of Photography on All Quiet on the Western Front, is gorgeous. Through the writing, cinematography, and direction, Macau is brought to life in a way we’ve never seen on screen before. Having wandered the streets of Macau myself on an all-night gambling bender, I can say with confidence that the filmmakers perfectly capture the splendor, inscrutability, and tranquility. In the film, as in life, the city comes across as atmospheric, glamorous, and both simultaneously welcoming and unforgiving.
As with any film, Ballad of a Small Player deserves to be judged on its own merits, rather than as a potential Best Picture nominee. Like its setting and main character, it is flawed, but fascinating, beautiful, but dark, and something you’ve never quite seen before.
Ballad of a Small Player premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It will have a limited theatrical release on October 15 and will be available to stream on Netflix starting October 29.
"…Having wandered the streets of Macau myself on an all-night gambling bender, I can say with confidence that the filmmakers perfectly capture the splendor, inscrutability, and tranquility. "
